


As The Sea Will Allow

by sophia_sol



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animal Transformation, Bechdel Test Pass, Camping, Canada, F/F, Femslash, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Swimming, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000, Yuletide, sibling dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophia_sol/pseuds/sophia_sol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A selkie." Jeannette vaguely remembered that word from stories she'd read far too many years ago -- from fairy tales.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As The Sea Will Allow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [echoinautumn (maybetwice)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/gifts).



> Thanks to the wonderful sentientcitizen for her speedy and helpful betaing!

Jeannette stared bitterly out over the waves, or what she could see of them in the thick fog. She could easily have been alone on the beach, so little she could see of what was around her. Good. She needed to be alone right now. Damn Lisa anyways.

In her pocket, her cellphone chirped. She scowled, but pulled it out and looked at the screen. A text from her sister. _lunchtime_ , it read. _be there soon_ , Jeannette sent back, and shoved the phone into her pocket.

Much as she might wish to, she couldn't stay on the beach forever, letting the waves lap over her feet and drain away her anger. She had to face reality -- and Lisa -- again.

With a sigh, she turned and began to walk back up the beach, into the foggy nothingness. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a seal sliding off a rock and into the water, and she resolutely ignored it, though she'd have loved to get a closer look.

Instead she turned her feet away from the ocean when she reached the path to the campground, and trudged back to duty.

"What took you so long?" her sister demanded when she arrived at their site.

"I was down at the beach. It's a bit of a walk."

"We came on this camping trip to spend time together as sisters, and all you do is go off without me!"

This again. Of course. Jeannette hadn't seen her sister in five years and of course she'd fall right back into the same old accusations. "I spent all this morning here at the site with you, and I was only at the beach for an hour, so stop it, Lisa," she said. "Can't we act like adults now?"

"Oh, because moping on the shore is so adult."

"Just as adult as making food you know I don't like!" Jeannette glanced pointedly at the macaroni and cheese warming on the Coleman stove, and Lisa didn't have the grace to look abashed for even a moment.

"I forgot you don't like it," she said. "But -- seriously, Jeannette, who doesn't like mac and cheese?"

"Can't you _ever_ let it be?" Jeannette sighed, and threw herself into one of the lawnchairs by the firepit.

"You're so touchy! I was just making an observation."

"Of course you were. You're always just 'making an observation.'" She crossed her arms and glared at the ashes.

"Well, fuck you too, then, if you're going to be like that," Lisa bit out. "You know what? Enjoy your mac and cheese. I'm going to go find reasonable people to spend time with." She stomped off to her car and within moments was backing out of the campsite.

As the sound of crunching gravel faded into the distance, Jeannette stood back up and went to the picnic table. She poked at the mac and cheese with a spoon, and sighed. Wonderful. Less than a day in Lisa's presence and already the whole thing seemed hopeless. So much for rebuilding bridges.

She turned the stove off and let the mac and cheese sit. It could just congeal there and wait for Lisa's return, as far as Jeannette was concerned. Instead she dug a bagel and some peanut butter out of their food bin, and wandered back down the road towards the beach, munching absentmindedly.

When she got to the water's edge, the fog had lifted somewhat. She could see a good distance down the beach now, enough to see that the earlier illusion of solitude was in fact truth. There was nobody else on the beach.

The rocks looked inviting to her, so she held what remained of her bagel in her mouth as she clambered up, and made her way precariously across. When she reached the place she had seen the seal earlier, she stopped abruptly. What was that? There seemed to be a... a piece of clothing of some sort, folded tidily and perched on the rock. Jeannette narrowed her eyes, hastily finished off her bagel, and then picked it up. It looked oddly familiar, like something she had seen before.

What was it?

The memory came to her. When she had been helping to clean out her grandmother's attic after her death, years ago, there had been something quite like this in the bottom of an old cardboard box. She'd asked Lisa what she thought it was, and Lisa had replied that she didn't care, and could they just hurry up and finish?

It was something like an animal skin, and soft and strangely lovely. Jeannette had rather liked it, so she'd put it in the pile of things she wanted to keep for herself. It was probably in the depths of her hall closet now, among other things she liked and had little use for: a collection of amber depression glass, a spinning wheel, an old mantel clock.

She stroked the skin that was in her hands now, and shook it out. Gorgeous. She still liked it, and she still hadn't a clue what it was or what to do with it. Well, she could take it home and it could join her grandmother's in the closet. She could give them to one of her craftier acquaintances, if nothing else.

"Give it to me."

Jeannette started out of her reverie, and whirled around. Who had spoken?

"Please," the voice said, and now Jeannette realized it was coming from the water. There was a naked woman climbing out and onto the rocks, a fierce and determined expression on her face.

The woman was beautiful.

"Um," Jeannette said, and held it out to her. "Sorry! What is it?"

"It's my skin." And she plucked it from Jeannette's hands.

"Sorry?" Jeannette said. And then: "Wait, _what_?" Because the woman had thrown the skin over her shoulders, and now there was no woman in sight, only a seal making its ungainly way to the water.

"Won't you at least explain?" Jeannette burst out, while her mind frantically circled around the thought that this was impossible, completely impossible.

The seal stopped, and turned, and looked at Jeannette. And then the woman was standing there, with her seal skin in her arms. "I'm a selkie," she said simply.

"A selkie." Jeannette vaguely remembered that word from stories she'd read far too many years ago -- from fairy tales. No, that couldn't be. Except she'd already seen the impossible, and it was standing in front of her.

"Aren't selkies, um, Irish?" she asked, dredging up what little memory she had of those long-ago tales.

The woman nodded. "Yes," she said. "We are as much newcomers to this land as your people. But there is water and beauty and a mostly-wild shore, and -- I like it here."

"I like it here too. Lots better than my home, anyways."

"Then you don't live here?" the woman asked.

"No, I'm only here for a week. I come from Vancouver." At the woman's inquiring look, Jeannette elaborated, "A big city, on the mainland. Across the channel on the other side of this island. It's nice as cities go, but --"

"But it's nothing like this," the woman finished softly. "I understand."

Jeannette smiled wryly. "Thanks. At least someone understands. My sister thinks I'm crazy for not appreciating what I've got."

"You don't like her." It was not a question.

"No, she just -- we rub each other the wrong way, you know? We never have been able to get along for more than two minutes at a time."

"I'm sorry," the woman said. "My sisters and I, we're very close. Family is important."

Jeannette sighed. "Yeah. So they tell me."

They stood there silently for a long moment, just looking at each other, and then the woman said, "Thank you for giving me back my skin. I have to go now." And she dived into the water, pulling the skin about her as she met the waves. Then she was gone.

The next instant, Jeannette's cellphone buzzed. She didn't pull it out, just sat down on the rock and stared out over the sea. It figured. She met the most devastatingly attractive woman of her life, and she was a _selkie_. Hard to invite her out for coffee.

Especially if she'd just imagined the entire impossible event.

She sat there nearly half an hour, chin resting on her knees, before she finally checked her phone message. It was her sister, of course. _where are u_ , it said. Jeannette sighed. _beach_ , she typed, as she began to unfold herself. _coming_. Then she stopped, sat back down, deleted the second word, and sent the text. Lisa could damn well make the effort herself if she was so desperate for sisterly bonding, after that immature flouncing away earlier.

The phone buzzed again. _come back 2 site_ , it told her. Jeannette rolled her eyes. _why_ , she sent. Buzz. _im sorry if u were upset_. That was a classic non-apology, so Jeannette sent back, _nice try_.

 _f u_ , was the response. Happily, Jeannette thought, and put her phone away. Then acting on impulse, she stripped down to her skin, piled her clothes neatly, and dove into the water.

The cold was a shock. "It's fine once you're in," she said aloud when her head surfaced, the stock phrase a mantra, and soon enough it was true. She revelled in the feeling of the water caressing her skin, in the tingle of cold electrifying her, in the way it made her feel at least a little connected with the strange selkie woman she'd probably never see again. It was glorious, and by the time she was shivering and hauling herself back onto land, she was grinning with exhilaration.

She used her t-shirt as a towel, and put it on wet. It would dry soon enough in the sun. Then she checked her phone.

There were three new texts, all from Lisa, and all increasingly irate-sounding. Jeannette sighed, and sent, _coming, keep your shirt on_. Then she walked -- slowly -- back up the beach towards the path.

***

The next day found Jeannette back at the beach, on the rock where she'd met the selkie woman. She didn't know _why_. It wasn't like she'd see the woman again, she told herself. But it was a good spot for swimming. So.

She stripped again to bare skin and plunged into the water's embrace, pushing from her mind the latest altercation with Lisa. This time was for herself.

At a sound from the shore, Jeannette paused, treading water, and pushed her hair out of her face. On the rock stood the woman, skin draped lightly over one arm. "Hello," she said.

Jeannette's eyes widened, and she swam to the rock. "You came back."

The woman smiled, an expression of uncomplicated happiness. "You intrigue me," she said. She placed her skin beside Jeannette's pile of clothing, and dove into the water beside her, every inch human.

"Race me," said the woman when she surfaced, an impish smile on her face. "To there." She gestured to a further-away point of rock, then took off.

"No fair!" Jeannette gasped, but she surged forward, straining as hard as she could to keep up.

As hard as she could wasn't good enough, not against the easy athleticism of a selkie. Jeannette reached the far point out of breath and lengths behind the woman. But the woman just grinned at her and offered her a hand out of the water, and the two of them sat on the rock side by side, wet bodies glistening in the warm sunlight.

Jeannette's heart was racing with adrenaline and hard work and the effect of a gorgeous woman beside her, and she took deep breaths to calm herself.

"What's your name?" she said, to say something.

The woman shook her head. "It's unpronounceable to a human mouth. I've tried -- it sounds horrible!"

"Can it be... I don't know, translated to English?" Jeannette asked, curious now.

"It's a name, not a word," the woman said with a laugh. "A translation wouldn't be very successful."

Surprised, Jeannette didn't say anything for a moment. For some reason she'd assumed that selkies would have names that meant something, like "wave-dancer" or something. In retrospect, that had been a bit silly of her.

"I'm Jeannette," she offered.

"And can that be translated?" the woman asked with a glint in her eye.

"I haven't a clue, actually. It probably has a meaning, I just don't know it." She paused. "Is there something I can call you, at least?"

The woman arranged her face in a caricature of deep thought. "Hm," she said. "Call me... 'hey, you!' Does that work?"

Jeannette giggled. "Oh, definitely."

* * *

About an hour later Jeannette left the beach and walked back to the campsite, a breathless smile on her face.

When she got there an irate Lisa was waiting for her.

"Where have you been?" she demanded.

"Just down at the beach. You were still sleeping when I got up, so I wrote a note. Didn't you see it?"

"What?"

Jeannette sighed. "The _note_. That I taped to the tent door."

"I didn't see it. You should have left it somewhere noticeable."

Jeannette marched over to the tent, and pointed at the door. "It's clearly visible. I don't know how you missed it."

Lisa frowned. "If you're going to run off like that, you need to be better at letting me know."

"I _tried_ ," Jeannette said through gritted teeth. "I did my very best."

"Good intentions don't make the world go round." Lisa glared.

"For god's sake! I didn't _intend_ to do something, I _did_ it."

"Well, not very well, obviously."

"Oh, for --" Jeannette cut herself off, and after a deep breath, said, "I'm sorry, okay? Now can we stop fighting?"

"You really think you can just brush me off like that and expect everything to be okay? I can _tell_ you're not sorry. Jeannette, really. Why did you agree to come if you have no intention of putting any work into this?"

"Are you even listening to yourself? I can't believe you. _You're_ the one putting no effort in! Why'd you even suggest this trip?"

"If you must know, David thinks it's not healthy for me to still be at odds with the only family I've got left. And you know what? I thought he was right! I thought this would -- well, that doesn't matter." Lisa threw her arms in the air. "Because you're certainly proving me wrong!"

"Fuck you, Lisa. You're the one who _left_! How do you think I felt, stuck at home, when you --"

"How do you think _I_ felt, knowing no one even missed me? You were glad to see the last of me, admit it!"

"I was! You were awful to me. I thought maybe you'd grown up since then! But you haven't said a single nice thing to me all weekend, did you know? At least I'm _trying_."

"You call this trying? _Yelling_ at me is trying? Jeannette!"

"I didn't start yelling until you did!"

"What? No, _you_ started the yelling -- you always did! I think you _enjoy_ provoking me and saying it's all my fault."

"And there _you_ go, blaming me! I did not start this." Jeannette could feel her anger rising uncontrollably -- or maybe it had been uncontrollable for a while already. Fucking Lisa.

"I hate you. You're malicious, and petty, and -- and you _always_ have to be right. Newsflash! You're not!"

Jeannette clenched her fists. "Lisa," she said. "Shut. Up. I will not stand here and listen to you insult me. You have no right. Apologize, right now."

Lisa stopped, mouth open. Then she said, simply, "No. You _deserved_ it, every word." And before Jeannette could say a single thing, Lisa continued. "I'm leaving," she said. "I'm going, and I never want to speak to you again. I'm going to pack up my stuff into my car, and you can just do whatever the hell you want, because you are not worth my time."

Lisa turned her back pointedly on Jeannette, going over to the tent, where she began throwing her gear out of it with more force than necessary. Jeannette stared until tears began to blur her eyes, and then she turned too and stomped away down the road towards the beach.

* * *

"...and I don't even know what I could have done to make things work out okay," Jeannette finished miserably from her seat on the rock, arms hugging her knees.

"I don't think you could have," the woman said softly, and wrapped a sympathetic arm around Jeannette. "You came on this trip intending to fix things, yes?"

"Yes," Jeannette said through a sniffle.

"And you truly thought it would work."

"Yes."

"And you did everything you could, and tried your best to keep your temper when Lisa provoked you."

"Yes."

"What else could you have done?"

"I -- I don't know." Jeannette sighed. "I just feel like there should have been something, you know? We're _sisters_ ; family is supposed to stick together through thick and thin."

"Relationships involve more than one person."

Jeannette sighed again, and leaned in closer to the woman. "Yeah. I guess. But -- Lisa said that she was trying her best too! Both of us were trying, and it still failed."

The woman's hand began to trace rhythmic circles on Jeannette's shoulders, and Jeannette put her head down on the woman's shoulder.

"It's all right," the woman said. "You did your best. Nobody can expect more. It's all right."

And with that Jeannette could hold back no longer, and began to cry. The woman held her close.

* * *

The next day when Jeannette returned to the rock, the woman was nowhere to be found, though she waited all day. When the sun began to set, Jeannette walked slowly back to her campsite, feeling hurt and abandoned and knowing she had no right to. She'd only met the woman a few days ago, after all. To the woman, Jeannette was probably just an interesting piece of the human world coming briefly into contact with the sea, nothing meaningful at all.

* * *

Jeannette went back to the rock the next day anyways, hating herself for her ridiculous hope, and just as she was telling herself to stop being stupid and go back to Vancouver -- the selkie swam up.

"Hi," Jeannette said in a small voice.

The selkie changed into her human form, and stood in the water, looking up at Jeannette. "I'm sorry," she said, after a long pause.

Jeannette couldn't find anything else to say, just twisted her hands behind her back as she stared down at her own feet.

"I -- I saw you here yesterday," the woman continued eventually. "I'm sorry I didn't come. I was -- not sure what was the right thing to do. I like you a lot, but I love the ocean, and my family, and my life." She paused again. "I didn't want to get too attached."

"But you're here today," Jeannette said, feeling cold and very alone.

"Yes, well." The woman looked away. "Turns out I'm already attached."

"Um," said Jeannette, then couldn't think of what else to say. The woman was amazing, and beautiful, and apparently _really liked_ Jeannette, and Jeannette would only have one week with her? That _sucked_. Jeannette resolved to forget that, and simply said, "I'm...pretty attached too."

They stood awkwardly staring at each other for another long pause, and then Jeannette laughed nervously and began to strip her clothing. "So. Shall we swim?"

* * *

Jeannette went back the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next, and each day the woman was there waiting for her at the rock. Jeannette packed a lunch and a dinner for herself each day to bring to the beach, so she wouldn't have to return to her campsite. She brought extra clothing one day, to loan to the woman, and they went on a hike. She brought extra food another, to share with the fascinated woman, who was unfamiliar with human food.

In return the woman could not share much of her world with Jeannette, but she brought back stories of what life was like among selkies, and Jeannette listened avidly. It sounded so much better than the life that was waiting for her back in Vancouver -- but she quickly thrust that thought away. She would _enjoy_ this brief time of freedom, and not let herself think of anything depressing.

* * *

The next day was Sunday.

"I have to leave today," Jeannette said, the words sitting unpleasantly on her tongue.

"To return to Vancouver, yes."

Jeannette buried her face in her hands. "I don't want to go." Her voice was muffled, and she kept it from wobbling only with great concentration.

"Then don't."

To the woman, it was that easy, Jeannette realized. Stay, or go, both options equally viable, and all Jeannette had to do was decide what she valued the most. Choose.

Jeannette couldn't.

"It's all right," the woman said softly, when Jeannette had been silent for long moments. "Do what you must."

Jeannette sniffled. "Must I?"

"I think so, or you would have agreed to stay here without hesitation." The woman's words were firm, but there was sadness in the set of her face. Jeannette couldn't help it, and reached out to comb her fingers through the woman's hair.

"I'll miss you," she said.

The woman sighed, a soft sound. "If you ever come back here for vacation, return to this rock. I'll hear of it, and come." Without waiting for an answer, she picked up her skin and flung it about her shoulders, and was gone into the water.

Jeannette stared after her. "Don't go," she said, forlornly, and then realized the irony of her words and broke into a bitter laugh.

Walking back up the beach felt like walking up the side of a sheer cliff wall: impossible.

She did it anyways.

***

Back in Vancouver, Jeannette was miserable. Her job could compete for an international medal in boredom, and her coworkers were impossibly tedious. The only family she had left was Lisa, and after the debacle of their vacation, she didn't think Lisa quite counted. Her so-called friends did nothing but complain endlessly with no interest in anything except their own small miseries, and thought everyone else should be interested too.

Jeannette bore it as well as she could.

This was life, this was real life. This was what everyone had, job and family and friends, and she just had to get the right attitude and learn to deal with it.

She practised patience each day at work, ignored her coworkers, ignored her sister as best she could, did her best to be supportive to her friends, and signed up for an evening art class in the hope of finding something fun to distract herself with.

The art teacher was terrible, and after bearing it for a few weeks she dropped the class in disgust, and spent her time instead haunting the mythology and fairy-tale sections of the local public library.

When she found herself researching Irish immigration to Canada, types of seals, the history of Vancouver Island, the west coast's ecosystems, and job possibilities on the Pacific Rim, she admitted she had a problem.

But what could she do?

She could move to Vancouver Island, but she wasn't qualified for most of the jobs she found openings for, so she'd have no way to support herself.

She could take regular vacations to the coast, but it would be a pathetic life, surviving fifty miserable weeks each year in anticipation of two.

She could stay where she was and try to forget that week had ever happened, but she'd been trying that for months already, and it wasn't working even a little bit.

Sighing, Jeannette slammed shut the book she was staring at, and shoved it back onto the shelf. This wasn't helping. She needed to distract herself.

She went home then, and threw herself into cleaning out every inch of her apartment. Ruthlessly she culled everything she didn't need, from jars lurking in the back of her fridge to the chest of drawers she'd never really liked. Her hall closet was the last front of attack, and she took more time there, to reminisce over childhood memories.

The nearly complete set of depression glass she stared at for a while, before going into her kitchen and pulling out all of her cheap and ugly dishes and boxing them up to send to a thrift store. She could damn well _use_ the depression glass, instead of hoarding it in the dark.

The trunk of her old school projects and records she sat down with, and she went through each paper, removing everything she didn't care about and carefully collating the rest into folders to file away properly.

The box of fabric scraps from her mother she decided with a sigh she'd never use -- she wasn't a quilter. She was just about to set the box into the pile of things to get rid of, when she recognized what was poking out of the top.

The skin.

The skin from her grandmother, the skin that looked identical to the selkie woman's skin, the skin that somehow she had forgotten about after that first day when she met the woman.

How had she forgotten?

How could she have forgotten?

Carefully, reverently, she unfolded the boxtop and pulled the skin out. Her fingers caressed its soft folds, and she held it out in the light.

It was every bit as gorgeous as she remembered. With a hitch to her breath, she pulled it in close, hugged it to her chest, and closed her eyes as she remembered how _happy_ she'd been with the woman, a happiness that she hadn't felt for years.

She let her tears fall, burying her face in her arms, and never loosing her grip on the skin.

* * *

Later, when Jeannette was sitting at her kitchen table with the skin folded carefully in front of her, eyes red but dry, it occurred to her to wonder where her grandmother had gotten the skin in the first place. There was no way to ask her now, unfortunately.

So all she had was speculation.

Maybe her grandmother had found the skin, and taken it without realizing what it was. Maybe she had been given it as a gift by someone similarly clueless. Maybe she had known a selkie. Maybe she had _been_ a selkie.

That last thought captured her. What would it be like, she wondered, to grow up in the ocean, and one day choose to join the world of humans, and leave the water behind forever? Would anything be worth that? What would it take to make a person decide to leave their life and start again completely from scratch, in a different world?

What...would it take....

Jeannette sat up straight, thunderstruck. Wasn't that exactly what she had been wanting to do? Leave her life, and start again somewhere where she could be with the selkie woman she had met?

It was simply her bad fortune that she couldn't easily change her body as a selkie could; she was trapped in the human world, while a selkie could choose land or sea.

Unless.

Almost without realizing what she was doing, Jeannette picked up the skin from the table, pulled her coat on, and was out the door.

A busride and a bit of a walk later, and Jeannette stood shivering at the harbourfront, staring at the water with the skin in her hands. No, there were too many people here. She couldn't strip off her clothing and turn into a seal (or stand there embarrassed and naked with a sealskin around her shoulders) with so many possible witnesses.

But. Did she really need to be by the ocean? She only wanted to see if the skin would transform her. It didn't have to involve swimming.

A second impatient busride took her home. She clattered up the stairs into her apartment, shucked clothes as she walked through it towards her bedroom, and then she stood naked by her bed, the skin in her hands, her heart pounding with nerves and excitement.

With a swift motion, she settled the skin around her shoulders. The world seemed to pause for a bright, ecstatic moment, and then --

Then everything was different.

Her body felt different, the world smelled different, her room looked different, and she was a _seal_.

Irrepressible joy bubbled up within her, and if she'd still been human she would have been laughing breathlessly.

It had _worked_. It had worked!

Then with an almost unconscious twitch of her mind, a feeling that it was _wrong_ to be a seal in a bedroom, she was human again, the skin no longer a part of her but held in her hands, and now she did laugh, helplessly, falling backwards onto her bed, feeling like she could never be unhappy again.

* * *

The next day she rented a car and drove along the highway up past Horseshoe Bay, continuing until she was far from anywhere and anything. Then she pulled her car to the side of the highway, put on the four-way flashers, and struck out by foot to the water's edge.

Nervously she stripped her clothes and made a neat pile of them on a rock, hardly noticing the cold. Then she picked up the skin, and after just a moment's pause, she pulled it around herself.

And she was a seal, awkwardly pulling herself into the water, adrenaline rushing through her, excited and frightened and full of hope.

In the water, all fear vanished. Instinct took over. Jeannette had always loved to swim, but swimming as a seal was so effortless, so easy by comparison, that it felt like something altogether new and different.

And it _was_. It was -- oh, she couldn't even find words to describe it, she just knew that it was amazing.

She swam for hours, thrilling in the feel of it, the rightness of it, and when she knew it was time for her to go back home, she could hardly convince herself to return to the shore.

* * *

Back at her apartment, Jeannette knew she had made up her mind. She was going to go. She would abandon her life, give up being human, and join the woman in the water beyond the island. She would turn her back, and never return.

That meant she had some things to do.

She went to a lawyer, and drew up a will, leaving all her things to her sister. She gave two weeks notice at work. She set up a separate bank account under a name not her own, and put some money into it, so if she ever wanted to visit the human world she'd have the funds. She cleaned her apartment again, even more ruthlessly this time, getting rid of everything she knew Lisa would have no interest in, to make it easier for Lisa once she was gone. She told her landlord that she was leaving and wouldn't be renewing her lease.

Then she sat down at the computer and carefully drafted an email to send to Lisa.

 _Dear Lisa_ , it said, _You probably won't see me again. I'm leaving Vancouver, and I don't expect to be back. Don't worry about me; I've found a place to be happy and someone to love. I've attached my bank account information, and I've mailed you the key to my apartment; it should arrive in a few days. Feel free to do whatever you want with my money and my things. I'm sorry we never could get along, and I hope you have a good life. - Jeannette_

The day she finished at her job, she sent the email. Then she took the ferry out to Vancouver Island, and hitchhiked across it to the far coast, until she was at the campground she had been staying at those many months ago.

She took the familiar walk down to the water's side, and found her way to the rock where she had met the woman. Then she sat down. She would wait for as long as it took.

This turned out to be less time than she thought. It was less than a day that she spent meditating in the cold before she saw a seal swimming up towards her.

Jeannette jumped up, and when the seal was on shore and a woman again, Jeannette just grinned at her with helpless delight.

"You came back," the woman said. "It's really you!" And she wrapped herself around an unresisting Jeannette and kissed her.

Oh.

 _Yes._

When they finally broke apart, and the woman seemed perfectly ready to dive into another kiss, Jeannette held up a hand. "Wait just one moment," she said, jumpy with excitement. "Guess what I have."

"What?" the woman asked, clearly not caring but willing to indulge Jeannette in whatever flight of fancy this was.

Jeannette laughed happily. Then she drew her grandmother's skin out of her bag, and held it up.

"That's -- that's -- _what?_ " the woman gasped, eyes huge. "No! Really?"

"It was my grandmother's," Jeannette explained, as she pulled the woman towards her again. "She made her choice. Now I've made mine."


End file.
